This exhibition features the work of L3 Year 1 art students from East Kent College who used The Waste Land as a starting point for visual art work. Explore the students’ range of responses and see the way they turned words to images, sounds and shapes.

The students’ contextual project for the year was based around Modernism, and the culture and art & design movements of the 1920s. The students read the poem together, analysed it, shared their ideas and went with their ‘gut response’ to T.S. Eliot’s words.

When encouraged to respond to the poem, students were not directed towards any artists or designers, and images did not have to be art images. For many of the students the poem brought out very personal responses, such as grief or memories of very difficult times in their lives. Other students had very strong visual responses to the imagery in the poem and created work that illustrated the phrases. Some students related the idea of The Waste Land as a comment on political and social issues, so one piece is inspired by the politics of the student’s home country, another piece by the abandoned Kent Coalfields, a third piece was inspired by the idea of a ‘digital waste land’ as a comment on lives lived on social media.

This is an independent event organised by members of the public in response to Turner Contemporary's invitation to create an event or activity inspired by The Waste Land, T.S. Eliot's legacy, and Turner Contemporary's exhibition Journeys with 'The Waste Land'.